Since January 2011 the Russian Mufties Council appointed the new Chief of Staff - who held up a post of the Head of the International Department - Rushan-Hazrat Abbyasov, who is also the imam muhtasib of the Moscow region. Today in an interview Rushan-hazrat agreed to share his vision of development of the largest Muslim organization in Russia.

- Rushan-hazrat, we congratulate you on assuming the new post! What steps did you take after, and what prospects do you expect?

- Thank you. First of all, I want to say that a new post - it is a big responsibility and I pray to God that He will give strength and wisdom and His blessing that our team will be able to meet the expectations entrusted to us. The main purpose and the general line of the Russian Mufties Council are determined by its leadership, headed by the Chairman of the RMC mufti sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin.

There are a lot of problems. Firstly, it is a rebuilding of the structure of the Russian Mufties Council so that it best suits the objectives that Muslims of Russia are facing, secondly, taking into account the need to involve a wide range of public, in addition to religious leaders to address complex issues the Muslim community is facing in our country, it is a formation and development of the expert council of the RMC.

Given the negative attitude towards Islam and Muslims, which is now artificially provoked and roused in the Russian society, we as a centralized Muslim religious organization are responsible for communicating accurate information about Islam, not only in words, but confirming that by our activities. Today it is a primary task of every Muslim - by his own example he/she should be a model of morality, education, training, reliability and high level of culture, which will be evident in all spheres of life, not just during his/her visits to the mosques.

Our challenge is to protect the rights of the Muslim population, including those who are the guests of our country, because from the total number of migrant workers, almost half - are Muslims and we should in this respect, care for their normal stay in our country.

After analyzing the activity of the Russian Mufties Council, including its constituent Religious Boards of Muslims in particular, according to the reports for 2010, we formulated the following key problem areas that require the application of effort for a successful solution. There are legal vulnerability of Muslim organizations, the low level of religious education, poor coordination with the scientific community in all fields of science and the public, poor information support activities, promotion of extremist ideas, that confuse Muslim youth, poor adaptation of migrants from CIS countries who come to Russia.

Some of these issues were entered on the agenda of the first meeting of the Expert Council under the Russian Mufties Council, who, at the initiative of the Mufti Sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin, was held February 10 this year. As a result of the meeting, the important decisions were taken: the formation of five committees to address problems in the areas of law and human rights advocacy, research and education and outreach work with youth, the study of social processes and countering Islamophobia, media relations, the All-Russian Muslim meetings and etc.

We, as Muslims, as citizens of our country, having such a valuable guide as the Quranic teachings that contain the wisdom and guidance for all occasions, have a dual responsibility for those sad events that are happening today with our Russian society. We must defend the interests of not only the ability to print on classical Islamic literature, obtaining the right to work for the girls wearing the headscarf, but also the rights of the society as a whole on the environment, healthy food, ethical finance, protection of morally destabilizing elements, such as drunkenness, smoking, drug addiction and etc.

- Tell us more about the new structure of the Office of the RMC, and of course, about personnel matters. It is known that young people are now inclined to go into business rather than in public organizations.

- The new structure of the Russian Mufties Council consists mainly of young professionals who, despite their young age, fluent in several foreign languages and already have experience in their fields.

Since February this year the RMC has three departments: the Department of social welfare, spiritual and educational activities, the Department of international affairs and the newly created Department of Economics. The problem of interaction with the regional religious departments entrusted to the secretariat of the Staff.

Each department is headed by the director, have two higher education - the religious and in one of the secular sciences. It is gratifying to note that in early March of this year, heads of the Social Department and Economic Department defended their dissertations for PhD degree (philosophical and economic, respectively).

Today, the personnel of the Russian Mufties Council includes the graduates of leading Moscow and Russian universities: Moscow State University, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (the University), RAGS, Moscow State Linguistic University, Moscow State Pedagogical University, MGRS, etc. Among the employees are a few postgraduate students.

- Tell us more about each department, its constituent offices and their leaders.

- The Department of social welfare, spiritual and educational activity consists of four offices: the Office for work with prisoners, the Office of military-patriotic education, the Office of cultural and educational programs, the Office of philanthropy and social support.

Among the most important annual events held by the department is the Tent of Ramadan - a holiday, open to all comers, as well as Maulid al-Nabi - the celebration of the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. The Experience in conducting these activities, aimed at spreading the spirit of kindness and mercy is extended to other Russian regions.

The Department is headed by Imam-Khatib of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque Hazrat Mustafa Kyutyukchyu.

The objectives of the Department of International Affairs includes the development and maintenance of contacts of Muslim religious organizations in Russia with foreign countries and organizations. The Department undertakes a wide range of activities, on a regular basis interacts with the diplomatic corps of Muslim countries and countries with significant Muslim populations.

The department has three Offices: the Office of International Relations, the Office of Education Abroad, that coordinates the educational programs for Russian Muslims in more than twenty countries around the world in various ways: religious education, education for bachelor's or master's of secular sciences, foreign languages, cultural educational tours, training courses, etc.; the Office of Hajj and Umrah, which implements training programs for pilgrims from Russia to the holy places of Mecca and Medina. In the near future a new Office for Cooperation with CIS countries will be created.

The Department was headed by a graduate of MIIYA and madrassas Muhammadiyah Halite hazrat Sitdekov who before was in the post of the 1st Vice-Director of the Department of International Affairs.

The Department of Economics combines the direction of organizing economic life of Muslims of Russia and the solution of problems in organizing an effective system of collection and distribution of zakat, a system of waqf, the organizating the capacity to implement the investment and financing in accordance with the requirements of Islam: without the presence of interest and speculation.

The Department today has two Offices – the Office of economic programs and the Office of halal standards development. The Department is headed by Madina Kalimullina who before held the position of the Deputy Director of the Department of International Affairs.

- It's not a secret that the Russian Ummah is at the turn of the new phase, so what should we expect from the new decade and what is the role of the Russian Mufties Council in the future development?

- We hope that the main result of our activities in the coming years will be increase in the overall cultural level of the Muslim population of Russia. After all, the Prophet (pbuh) said that he was sent to this world only to bring the character of man to perfection. We think that these words, if they are properly understood, are enough to make our life on earth better.

- What are the most important areas on which you plan to focus your attention mostly?

- Today there is a clear imbalance in the development of different directions between Moscow and the regions, except for some of the most advanced Muslim centers, as an example - the Volga and North Caucasus republics. In most other Russian regions, including Central Region, the Urals, Siberia, and others, Muslims are deprived of opportunities to participate in many programs and projects. And what is most important – they don’t have opportunity to even get a quality religious education in accordance with educational standards that today, for example, in Moscow, is available in more than 10 educational institutions. In this regard, we plan to transfer our experience and assistance to regional Muslim religious organizations in the organization and the development of these and other areas. Especially today, when many regions are waiting for our participation. This year I and our staff are planned to visit some Russian regions, and we hope that for many of them it will be a historic event, after which we will jointly be able to resolve the complex issues and problems faced by regional Muslim religious organizations.

The other important task is to organize the economic activities of Muslims and Muslim religious organizations. It is no secret that many mosques today can not provide decent wages to their Imams and teachers, so the educational process is not even possible. The development of approaches that will help to solve this problem is one of the objectives of the Economic Department.

Among the new challenges of international activities is close cooperation with Europe and the CIS.

- What are major events that are planned by the Russian Mufties Council in 2011?

- In addition to the annual celebration of two holidays – Uraza Bairam and Kurban Bairam, we continue to conduct large-scale international events such as the Moscow International Exhibition "Halal" (May 26-28 this year), Moscow International Quran recitation competition (24-25 September this year). In June of this year, we will host an international scientific-practical conference on the hajj, and also for the first time in Moscow in the autumn the European Muslim Forum will take place. Also in this year we plan the first All-Russian Muslim meeting which will be held in late March and we hope that this will contribute to the elaboration of approaches to effective solution of the problems the Muslim community of Russia is facing.